Returning after a two-year absence with his first physical fashion show, which took place in an aerial parking lot with a breathtaking view of the rooftops of Paris, Dries Van Noten offers a collection of stunning beauty, with underground cultures as inspiration.
The Antwerp-based designer was inspired by the Zazous, the marginal subculture that was in vogue in Paris in the 1940s – the Zazous were underground rebels, billed as “free spirits“. They dressed in English or American style and defied the Nazi occupation of Paris – and the Buffalo movement of the 1980s by photographer Jamie Morgan and stylist Ray Petri.
Exploring the softness and vulnerability within versus the firmness and strength that protects us from outside attacks, the collection reinvents different archetypes of men such as the after dark dandy, “the cowboy, the garage scene grifter and the sleeping dreamer“.
The result is an “Unusual Elegance“, cleverly mixing stripes and lingerie, the fragility of flesh color and the hardness of black, an airy long white shirt and cargo pants, a black marcel with a trapeze collar and a white shirt/tie or a floral pattern and patchwork. All supported by feathers, wings and flower-like graphics evoking light and airy feelings, in harmony with the intimate nature that Van Noten aims to create.
©Dries Van Noten
